Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird

I

• Among twenty snowy mountains,
• The only moving thing
• Was the eye of the black bird.

II

• I was of three minds,
• Like a tree
• In which there are three blackbirds.

III

• The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
• It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

• A man and a woman
• Are one.
• A man and a woman and a blackbird
• Are one.

V

• I do not know which to prefer,
• The beauty of inflections
• Or the beauty of innuendoes,
• The blackbird whistling
• Or just after.

VI

• Icicles filled the long window
• With barbaric glass.
• The shadow of the blackbird
• Crossed it, to and fro.
• The mood
• Traced in the shadow
• An indecipherable cause.

VII

• O thin men of Haddam,
• Why do you imagine golden birds?
• Do you not see how the blackbird
• Walks around the feet
• Of the women about you?

VIII

• I know noble accents
• And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
• But I know, too,
• That the blackbird is involved
• In what I know.

IX

• When the blackbird flew out of sight,
• It marked the edge
• Of one of many circles.

X

• At the sight of blackbirds
• Flying in a green light,
• Even the bawds of euphony
• Would cry out sharply.

XI

• He rode over Connecticut
• In a glass coach.
• Once, a fear pierced him,
• In that he mistook
• The shadow of his equipage
• For blackbirds.

XII

• The river is moving.
• The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

• It was evening all afternoon.
• It was snowing
• And it was going to snow.
• The blackbird sat
• In the cedar-limbs.